I appreciate you getting in touch about the closing entry concern on your account in QuickBooks Desktop (QBDT), @solocaptan. The closing entries in QBDT are entries made at the end of the fiscal year to transfer the balance from the Income and Expense accounts to Retained Earnings. To ensure the new fiscal year is fresh, with no leftover income or expenses from the prior year.
Also, these entries are created after you record all adjusting entries. Once the books are closed, you aren't supposed to enter any entries for that fiscal year.
QuickBooks Desktop doesn't have an actual transaction for closing entries; it automatically creates one. However, there are a few things you can do to analyze the automatic closing entries that were created; these are the following:
- Run the Profit and Loss Detail report for the previous fiscal year to review and confirm that income and expense transactions are accurate up to year-end.
- Go to the Reports tab, then click on Company & Financial.
- Select Profit and Loss Detail.
- Filter the dates of the report, then click Refresh.
- Check your fiscal year settings by going to the Company menu, selecting My Company, clicking the Pencil icon, then clicking Report information.
- Run the Closing Date Exception Report to view transactions that have been entered/modified on or before a closing date.
- Go to the Reports menu.
- Select Accountant & Taxes.
- Click Closing Data Exception Report.
- Customize the report with the information you need to show.
You can check out this article for more details about closing entries in QBDT: Close your books in QuickBooks Desktop.
I'll be sharing this to help prevent changes to past books in QBDT by using a closing date and password: Set or change a closing date and closing date password.
Feel free to post a reply in this thread if you have further questions about the closing entries. We're always around to help.
